


Icarus

by downtheroadandupthehill



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Apollo!Enjolras, Icarus!Grantaire, M/M, i don't even know what happened here but it did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtheroadandupthehill/pseuds/downtheroadandupthehill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wings crafted with cardboard and newspaper, tied to your shoulders with a few ribbons from Jehan (Jehan the romantic, of course he encourages you, of course, not knowing your penchant for self-destruction, although your wine-heavy limbs should have told him that).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus

I.

You hope he’ll never say  _I love you_. 

You think the words might break you into something that not even he could put back together, a mismatched puzzle short a few pieces right in the center, where your organs used to be. It’s easier, from afar, than two hearts beating side by side, in tandem,  _together_. Togetherness brings separation, and that you think you could not handle. If he allowed you to fly so close, only to fall.

Your skull will crack open on the rocks below, and your insides and the crimson spatter of blood will betray you, full to bursting (and then you’ve burst and been bashed open) with what you will not say but he will see painted on your corpse, and maybe he will weep then but likely not.

Wings crafted with cardboard and newspaper, tied to your shoulders with a few ribbons from Jehan (Jehan the romantic, of course he encourages you, of course, not knowing your penchant for self-destruction, although your wine-heavy limbs should have told him that).

They’re enough to keep you in orbit, as long as you don’t burn them to ash along the way.

You forget how flammable cardboard and newspaper can be.

II.

You paint your wings in gold to match his hair before you tie a length of yarn to your ankle and then a tree and take flight. The yarn is a safeguard—you’ve told yourself you won’t fly too close but you know better than anyone else that you are a  _liar_  and so you must chain yourself halfway to the ground instead.

You think you hear the tree whisper in your ear as you ascend but it’s probably just the wind.

And you think you see the fragment of a smile at the corner of his lips and you’d like to touch those lips and you reach out

a tug on the yarn, tied around your too-thin ankle

(pink and red and blistering where the flesh used to be whole, if not entirely pristine)

and you shudder and stutter and stop

The tree laughs at you on your way back to the ground, where the grass pricks at your feet.

There’s a smile playing around the corner of his lips that you would like to touch.

III.

Your teeth harsh against your tongue and you taste blood on your lips and wonder where it came from.

A scrounging, scavenging beast of the earth to rise into the heavens? You scoff at yourself and lick your lips again. You’d like a drink and to feel the sting like bees in your mouth and the sky and the  _sky_.

You don’t look up, and then you do.

Wings of paper and cardboard hang limp on your back. You’ve lost Jehan’s ribbons somewhere between the ground and the sky and use duct tape now, stuck to your shoulders like a second skin. Pale patches like teeth when you strip it off, later, against the angry red of the rest of you. You won’t scrub off the rest of the adhesive that’s attached itself to you, won’t bother with it, and your sheets begin to stick to you at night, trapping you  _safe_  where you won’t try to leave again into the treacherous endlessness infinite.

Other times you fly at night, and you do not burn. The night air soothes your searing flesh and your aches until you can feel your lungs again.

He murmurs in your ear with hot  _hot_ breath and from this far away you can’t make out the words so you close your eyes and pretend.

The stars are a poor substitute.

IV.

You can’t remember the last time you ate and the salt from the sea where you bathe sticks and crusts around the edges of your ribcage and in your hair.

You hang your wings on a tree to dry and try not to listen to her taunt you and you avoid the shade.

Fingers full of ancient splinters. You used to climb trees, and you only fell once.

(One day you’ll fall again, when you get near enough to hear his sweet, harsh words and the scape of his teeth against your collarbone and your insides and your wings catch fire and)

your wings are drying and the paint’s washed off, but you will try again.


End file.
